I operate on an Optiv Performance 1z443, a dual Vision/TTP system.
This particular unit comes (I believe standard) with a Rotary table, as described in the title.
For years, the company I work for didn't have a solid understanding of how to calibrate it; as they were the ones that trained me, neither did I.
Recently, I came across some information that was able to give me some clarity, and I thought I would share with the community.
Using the "canned" PC-DMIS calibration schtuff for the rotary, I dunno, for some reason I didn't find it adequate.
After some research, I discovered another method, involving Calibrate Rotary from Features...
Firstly, I drafted up a standard AutoCalibration program, to calibrate the Camera & All Tips.
I performed a File>Save As.. & created a separate AutoCalibration program, with the addition of the Rotary table steps, and, more importantly, an IGNOREROTAB/ON command at the top.
After the initial calibration of the tips, the program switches back to manual mode.
The operator is prompted to create a 4-point semi-circle on the outside of the rotary itself (which is blue in my case).
1 point is to be taken on the face, and the program moves to DCC mode.
Using DCC, a cylinder is drawn on the rotary, to establish a center for rotation. A simple point is used for the face of the rotary, but a plane can be substituted.
The next part is sort of "hacked together" honestly, but it works.
I don't know the exact nominal of where the sphere is "supposed" to be at 0°; instead I created an Auto Sphere at it's measured location, & measured it again with 17 points using the Master setting (to change the nominals to where it measured).
I then copied the sphere, set the workplane along the axis of the rotary (in my case, Y-) & Paste-With-Pattern'ed every 30°.
If you'd like, do it every 45, or heck, every 1; I don't need to rotate less than 30°, so I chose 30.
In between each sphere, I added a MOVE/ROTAB command to rotate to the desired angle.
Inserting some clearplanes & move points and what have you, it was allowed to DCC measure all of the spheres at their respective angles.
HERE'S WHERE YOU CALIBRATE THE ROTARY:
Create a plane from all of the spheres.
Level to this plane, parallel to the axis of the rotary (in my case, Y-)
Create a circle AFTER YOU ALIGN from all of the spheres
Insert>Calibrate>Rotary Table from Features
Use the Plane you levelled to, and the circle of the spheres.
Voila, it's calibrated.
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Hopefully this helps someone get their rotary going with more confidence.
I should note though, there are better processes for calibration, such as rotating to every desired angle, then rotating backwards to account for Hysterisis, & constructing a circle from that.
I just know I was never able to get PC-DMIS to effectively calibrate the rotary, or perhaps I never understood what it was doing, but this custom routine was able to get me going in a way I'm okay with.
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I'm unsure; I read something somewhere (I'm searching for it now actually) that said to level to the plane before you construct the circle.. I will try and provide documentation. I was actually curious about this
Gotta say, as well, I love how you used variables to calculate the angles of calibration, and just ask the operator how many angles they'd like to check. Very nice!
In your code, you constructed them both from a scan; I believe this would achieve this anyway!
We're doing the same thing, just different ways. I constructed a 2D circle, so it makes sense to level, but it shouldn't affect anything.
I'm just glad I got it working!